Tour of Perfusion Basics

Annually about 400,000 Bypass procedures are performed in the USA

Perfusionists help patients with a variety of diseases including

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)
Valve Disease
Congenital Heart Defects
Dissections
Aneurysms:
Transplants:
Other:

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By connecting a patient to a Heart/Lung Machine, the patients can be kept alive while their hearts are stopped. This allows the surgeon to perform delicate surgery on the motionless and bloodless heart.

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Coronary artery disease refers to the development of atherosclerotic plaques in the arteries of the heart. When this develops, the supply of oxygen rich blood to the heart muscle is reduced.

Angina is the term given to the symptom of crushing chest pain that patients experience when there heart muscle does not get enough oxygen.

One treatment of cornary artery disease is Bypass Grafting.

This picture is a drawing of the heart as it would be viewed through the right wall of the chest. The picture shows a plaque in the Right Cornary Artery (the red vessel) which is reducing the blood suply to the right ventricle. In the picture, this patient has recieved a single bypass graft (the blue vessel) which has been sewen onto the aorta and the right coronary artery.

This bypass graft now supplys oxygenated blood to the right ventricle distal to the plaque. To perform this delicate surgery it is generally necessary to stop the heart enabeling the surgeon place several hair-thin surtures in an area smaller than an eraser tip.

The cardiovascular perfusionist is the professional responsible for keeping the patient alive while their heart is stopped.